www.echoes-in-time.com

“Join us for our 10th annual gathering! Workshops include early living skills and primitive crafts from the stone age era through the pioneer era. The workshops are meant to appeal to people with historical and sustainable interests – mountain men, outdoorsmen, rewilders, permaculturalists, families, boy scouts, homeschoolers and abos. However, anyone is invited to register. No previous knowledge or experience is required. In fact, if you have a particular field of interest not mentioned, let us know when registering and we’ll do our best to accommodate your curiosity. Plan to register early as space is limited. Come prepared to learn amid a circle of enthusiasm and new friends. We look forward to one and all” – Echoes Staff

Hosted by Dale Coleman, Goode Jones, Leland Gilson
Monday, July 20, 2009 – Friday, July 24, 2009 at 5:00pm
Location: Willamette Mission State Park (Exit 263 of I-5 just north of Salem, Oregon)
Phone: 503.873.4055
Email: echoesintime@aol.com
Cost: $175 before June 30th 2009
Single Day Rate: $40 per person
Fees include park camping, insurance and instruction.

To register to go www.echoes-in-time.com

Some Courses offered:
• Fire by friction, flint & steel
• Flintknapping
• Stone tools & bowls
• Bone & antler tools
• Bows & arrows
• Atlatls
• Braintanning hides
• Rawhide containers
• Moccasins
• Hafting
• Cordage
• Plant walks
• Gourd work
• Soap making
• Felting
• Dying & weaving
• Fiber crafts
• Drop spindle
• Quill work
• Scrimshaaw
• Beading
• Blacksmithing
• Sustainable living

Part memoir, nutritional primer, and political manifesto, this controversial examination exposes the destructive history of agriculture—caused the devastation of prairies and forests, driven countless species extinct, altered the climate, and destroyed the topsoil—and asserts that, in order to save the planet, food must come from within living communities. In order for this to happen, the argument champions eating locally and sustainably and encourages those with the resources to grow their own food. Further examining the question of what to eat from the perspective of both human and environmental health, the account goes beyond health choices and discusses potential moral issues from eating—or not eating—animals. Through the deeply personal narrative of someone who practiced veganism for 20 years, this unique exploration also discusses alternatives to industrial farming, reveals the risks of a vegan diet, and explains why animals belong on ecologically sound farms.

http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804

If you’ve ever seen my 2004 film short, The Adventures of Urban Scout, you know that in the film I had an imaginary arch-enemy by the name “Suburban Scout.” He was trying to appear like me, Urban Scout, but only for the aesthetic and not the rewilding angle. The other day I picked up the Portland Tribune and turned to the “Sustainable Life” section (which I do from time to time for a good laugh or to get myself pissed at what they pass as sustainability) and saw a hilarious article on the front page entitled “Suburban Tepee” with the laugh-out-loud, ludicrous subtitle; “Commodities Broker Longs for Life Close to the Earth.” This guy looks like an honest to god, real life, Suburban Scout!

Of course, the article was boring and stupid and had nothing to do with sustainability what-so-ever. In fact, it had nothing to do with anything interesting, except to say that some rich douche in the upper crust suburb Lake Oswego sleeps in a tipi in his parents backyard at night, and by day works as a commodities broker at daddies company and spent his richie rich childhood traveling to exotic places (he even has a hippopotamus skin!).

“He says he’s no radical and isn’t trying to send a political message. He’s just trying to live nearer to nature.” What the fuck? They put him on the cover of the sustainability section and he has nothing to say about sustainability. Dude, what the fuck does “close to nature” even mean anyway? I can only assume it means living more sustainably, since he’s on the cover of the sustainable life section. How is sleeping in a synthetic tipi (what is that, carpet on the ground???) with chemically tanned hides of animals from a different continent getting you closer to nature or making you more sustainable? Living close to nature, living more sustainably, doesn’t mean standing or sitting or sleeping outside or close to plants or mimicing superficial indigenous customs from a completely different bioregion. Sleeping in a tipi has absolutely nothing to do with sustainability. NOTHING. Unless you’re a plains Indian living 300 years ago and even then the tipi is a bi-product of their sustainable land management practices. Hey Portland Tribune, my buddy Willem slept outside in his backyard for a year. Why isn’t he on the cover of the “sustainable” section? Fucking HOMELESS people sleep outside, in tents all year, all the time. Why aren’t THEY on the cover of the sustainable section? If sleeping in a tent is so fucking sustainable… I mean really. Oh right. They’re not rich assholes who continue the status quo of destruction.

Indigenous people live “close to nature” not because some of them sleep in tipis or wear the skins of animal or practice spiritual customs. They live sustainably because they manage the land in a sustainable way. Everything else about their culture is a bi-product of that. Want to live “close to nature?” You should read about how indigenous peoples of this region live and connect with nature in real-life ways, and then replicate their land management practices. It makes me wonder how and why this article was even in the paper? I mean… Did Paulson Commodities pay the tribune or something? Could it be that the author is a friend of the Paulsons and was bored? It has to be one of those two things… if not, just fucking shoot me. We’re fucked.

I can’t claim that I’m more pure than he is; anyone who works in the civilized economy is fucking up the planet somehow. But at least I’m saying something and challenging the status quo of destruction and exploitation. At least I’m working to dismantle civilization in the ways that I know how. And while I’m still very much dependent on the grocery store for food, at least I’m working to create a different world and making it clear that this culture is fucked up. The fact that there is abso-fucking-lutely nothing sustainable or interesting about some rich dude sleeping in a tipi, and that he’s on the cover of the sustainable section continues to blow my mind. Fuck the Portland Tribune and fuck “sustainability.” What really gets me about him is his hodgepodge, world-collection of indigenous artifacts and customs, this smorgasbord of cultural appropriation; an African animal skin, mid-western Indian shelter, and a white mans alleged version of southwestern Indian spirituality (the whole Tom Brown Jr. “Lipan Apache Shamanism” thing). Without a political message about sustainability, he is just another rich eccentric with a fetish for native peoples belongings and customs. A commodities broker who collects the commodities of broken indigenous cultures… How unique. And sustainable. Let’s put him on the cover!

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When I got back from L.A. last week, my yard was exploding with life and new growth. Everything I planted last year survived and is now waking up from its winter slumber. I looked back at my blog from a year ago, and another from a month later to see what progress I can make this year. But first, here is a photo update on the plants from last year!

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What can I say? I love L.A. Yes, it’s a tumorous growth on the flesh of the mother. Yes, it’s a cesspool of everything I hate. Yes, “the only way to fix it is to flush it all away.” And yet… There is so much I love about Los Angeles and I’m not just talking about the champagne parties that take place in roof top hot tubs (which are fucking awesome by the way)!

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Once again the retarded citizens of Portland are all up in arms over the giant, “historic” neon sign that sits on the west side of the river over the Burnside bridge. Around 10 years ago everyone freaked out and shit themselves when it was changed from saying “White Stag” (an old outdoor clothing company) to say “Made in Oregon” (a company that sells things only made in the state). Now the University of Oregon owns it and wants to change it to say “University of Oregon.”

Honestly, why the fuck are we even talking about an ugly neon sign? I hate to use the old “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic” saying but come on people. The salmon are rapidly going extinct right in front of us. Street names? Neon Signs? Really? This is what you’re spending your time talking about while land that gives us life withers under the destructive, imperialistic agricultural regime? This is what you’re choosing to emotionally invest in while dams, logging, commercial fishing and pollution are wrecking havoc the innocent lives of plants and animals with which we depend?

Oh wait, I’m sorry. No, let’s sit around and debate what we should name a street. Grand Avenue or Cesar Chavez Ave? Oh and if you say Grand you’re a fucking racist! If we are looking towards quality of life, I see no way in which a neon sign adds more quality to my life. I see that sign every once and a while and it leaves no impression on me, anymore than any other grotesque Clear Channel billboard, only it’s a vintage advertisement so it’s like, totally cool or something. What the fuck is wrong with you people? You know what leaves an impression on me? Stands of Black Cottonwood that stood 200 feet tall with a width of 7 feet, lining the shores of the Willamette river. Camas fields so dense that the valley looked like a great sea of purple. Land that was so rich from indigenous, sustainable land management that it baffled the agrarian fundamentalists who first encountered it.

While my family does not belong to the Native American populations who tended the lands here for 8,000 years, we have lived here longer than Grand Avenue, longer than that disgusting neon sign. As a fourth generation Portlander, and a recovering agrarian fundamentalist, I can tell you that I would rather have that funding go to life-giving historic monuments, like say, salmon runs so thick you can’t wade through the river than old energy consuming advertisements. As the climate crisis heats up, as economic collapse melts our society down, we need to restore the local, sustainable food systems that humans had in place here for thousands and thousands of years.

Shame on you Multnomah county, with your so-called “green technology” and “sustainable development.” You’re supposed to be the most liberal, environmentally conscious, eco-forward county in this country and yet you quibble over the most meaningless bullshit, spending tons of money, time and energy, distracting yourselves from doing something sincere for the future generations. Here is an idea, let’s just change the sign to say “Fuck the Planet.” That way you’ll be able to clearly remember every time you look at the sign where your priorities lie. Either way, it will be very clear to the generations of people that come after us, that the people of this land cared more about pretty little bright lights than rewilding our ravaged lands.

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(sound) magazine, a Seattle-based NW music magazine gave me a soap box. If you live in Seattle, pick up a copy! If not, read the digital version here:

http://openpub.realread.com/rrserver/browser?title=/MIP/SS4-09-1024

Special thanks to Paige Richmond, Mark Baumgarten & Kristen Truax! It is such an honor to be in a magazine with The Thermals (probably my favorite Portland band) and the creator of www.icanhascheezburger.com (my favorite website!).

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What up scout! A while ago I think I saw on your website that you were recommending some sort of all-encompassing, 9 month post-apocalyptic survival school based in the Portland area? If I recall, you were featured as an occasional instructor. I’m pretty sure I didn’t hallucinate this, but I can’t find any evidence of the website, the course, or the blog you made about it.I am desperately in need of something like that as I don’t feel really confident in learning about things like edible plants outside of such an immersive environment, and would really like a 9 month vacation from my real life, besides.Is this school still available? If not, is there any other program or collection of programs you might recommend that might eventually instill in me the confidence and skills to live indefinitely and sustainably in wilderness and semi-wilderness areas? Thanks!- Nachie

Hey Nachie,

You’re not hallucinating! I was going to be involved with a program that taught some of that stuff. Unfortunately the dude in charge stole the show and decided to go in a different direction than rewilding and I did not want to be a part of that. Which brings me to a very important topic on the subject of educational programs; rhetoric. Many of these programs have flashier and flashier marketing with enticing prose and inspiring photographs that are designed to excite you, the consumer, into taking their programs. In the end though, the classes are empty of culture and real content and are often taught by beginners, fresh out of a different year long program, with little to no real world experience or knowledge, who basically parrot what they were taught by other parrots in their first year. This creates a culture of a lot of know-it-all’s who actually have no fluency in skills other than crafting a few hand-made tools or in running “nature awareness” games (which is what they spend most of their time doing). I know this, because I was one of these parrots and still find myself parroting shit! I don’t recommend schools because none of them actually teach rewilding. Rewilding is about creating and maintaining culture, not a few primitive parlor tricks. These schools are either focused on primitive tools or permaculture or some non cohesive jumble of the two. If that’s your bag, then by all means. I’m sure you can find them using google. But tools won’t get you living sustainably in the wilds; culture does that.

The only educational program I ever recommend is Martin Prechtel’s “Bolad’s Kitchen.” It is actually based on re-creating a holistic indigenous culture, taught by someone who lived in, and played a role in, multiple indigenous cultures for most of his life. His school has almost nothing to do with hand-made tools and everything to do with culture.

But mostly I recommend starting a community in your own place: see my chapter “Schooling Vs. Rewilding”

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Years ago I created and facilitated an open-mic style video screening in Portland called Broadcast. It ran almost monthly for about 5 years. I stopped it almost 5 years ago now, and for the last couple of weeks I have felt the need to revive it. I love the art of filmmaking, and while I work in and enjoy the field of film production, it’s hardly the same thing to me. Maybe because I work mostly in advertisement, but feature films are not really what I think of as the art of filmmaking. Maybe to the director or writer, but to me the field of production is about working to produce something that someone else wants. The art of filmmaking to me, has always been about producing something that I want to give to other people.

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I never understood the difference between ones “dreams” and ones “vision.” I remember hearing Tom Brown Jr. exclaim at one of his classes that his dream was to go live with his family away in the woods and never talk to people again, but that his vision, to write and teach people made him stay in contact with culture. He said it made him sad he couldn’t live his dream. I remember thinking, what the hell is the difference? I think I know now.

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So you want to live like a hunter-gatherer, huh? In order to do that we need to remove the barriers civilization has in place to stop us from rewilding. If we wish to remove these barriers that prevent us from easily rewilding, we must first identify them. The following list shows many of the barriers I have come in contact with. The list feels incomplete, but it covers much of the basics. It also reflects the “pure” end of the rewilding spectrum; those who live so far from civilization (culturally) that they no longer use any industrial-made tools or interact with the civilized economy at all. The most basic survival course covers your immediate needs; shelter, water, fire and food. We’ll start with how survivalists acquire these skills vs. how the hunter-gatherers of the Northwest Coast acquired them.

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A lot of things have changed since the last time I posted an inconsequential blog, so here goes; I’m broke, single and living back with my parents in Molalla. I haven’t written in a while because I feel like I have nothing to say at the moment, but I know I have lots. For the last couple of months I’ve been crossing my fingers hoping to get on a reality tv show that I auditioned for. I didn’t get on it, for better or worse. I’d like to give you a daily snippet, but I don’t really have a typical day. So here is a mosaic of my days blended together.
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I keep hearing people say we’ve got an energy crisis. This carries a few bullshit premises. The most obvious premise here: that we need “energy.” Why do we need energy? What does it do that’s so fucking important? Humans lived for millions of years without electricity. Indigenous hunter-gatherers had no need to create it. It requires an entire industrial economy that inherently destroys the land in order to create it. It does not make humans lives easier; it simply gives the rich more power and more destructive tools. How many people in the world even have electricity? We don’t need “energy.” At least not in the way they mean it. The energy crisis, as well as the economic crisis, really means that rich people continue to lose power, and they have so brain-washed us that we believe we need to do our part to keep the pyramid strong, our slavery in place. Civilization uses energy to take even more than we could without it. The less energy civilization has, the more limits it has to grow. That seems pretty fucking fantastic to me.
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Can everyone shut the fuck up about “hipsters” already? I’m so fucking sick of that word. The whole subject seriously bores the shit out of me and yet I constantly have to defend myself from people who call me that word as though it suddenly makes everything I have done to further rewilding insincere or fake. I usually shrug it off but i recently surfed to the Adbusters website only to see an entire “feature” article from last summer where they just talk all kinds of shit about hipsters, and now I feel I need to say something.
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Dear Scout,
I can’t help but get the feeling that you are advocating for all 6 billion people to go back to living as hunter-gatherers. Wouldn’t that quickly deplete all of the wild food out there? Wouldn’t all 6 billion of us quickly eat up the wild? How many salmon are left? If all of us started eating salmon exclusively, they would go extinct that much faster. What do you think about this?

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My friend Josh tipped me off today that the latest issue of Adbusters has an excerpt from the Positive Living Magazine issue that featured me in an article.

I’m organizing 4 different rewild camps in the NW; Seattle, Olympia, Portland and Eugene. I’d love to come to Vancouver and make it 5 camps, pending on travel/gas time. (sorry Californians! Hopefully the year after next!)
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Surfing through all the Lolcats this morning I just couldn’t help but feel compelled to make one:

Read the full story here.

I try to avoid the newspapers as much as I can but I saw this photo on a paper tossed in a paper rack at my favorite taco joint and had to pick it up. It made me so fucking angry, as papers do, which shows you why I don’t read them, that I had to rewrite the article here for you to see, along with my commentary.

Take a look at this headline (in the “Sustainable Life” section):

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[youtube SkIsDRyq0DM]

Penny and I moved back to Portland. It’s funny because she gave me so much shit for wanting to live in Portland, and I gave her shit about living in the country. Now the roles are reversed. I didn’t want to move back for the same reasons she wanted to leave, and she wanted to move back for the same reasons I wanted to stay.
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People have been barking up my tree over this whole economic collapse thing. You know what? I don’t give a shit! We’ve seen economic collapses before. In fact, they are a normal function of civilization; like clockwork they merely end with the creation of a worse slave system than before. One world currency, one world culture. America has amassed a lot of fake wealth (and weapons and technology). But why go to the third world for labor when you can bring the third world to you? I don’t see economic collapse as the end of civilization, but a reorganizing of the wealth that will end with a steeper pyramid; more people on the bottom and less people on the top. Like Global Warming, the economic collapse has not triggered anyone to actually stop civilization, walk away or rewild. Rather, it appears that it will simply mean more people working longer hours for less money in shittier jobs than before. The only plus side is that it will hopefully push many people over the edge and encourage more people to seek alternatives like rewilding. Personally, I’m ignoring the whole thing, the same way I am ignoring the presidential election. Fuck it. Fuck them all. Fuck this noise. Know what I’m sayin?

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Fuck you.

Positive Living Magazine did a write up about me in their latest issue.

Hey Friends,

My friend Patrick is organizing a rewild camp tour starting at the end of February 2009. I’m going to help him with this process by utilizing the rewild.info site and corresponding with regional organizers. My own attendance is rather ambiguous as my freelance job doesn’t give me any idea of what time/money I will have.

Here is a list of the cities he’s looking at right now:

• Tucson
• San Diego
• Los Angeles
• Santa Barbara
• Santa Cruz
• San Francisco
• Berkeley
• Arcata
• Ashland
• Eugene
• Portland
• Olympia
• Tacoma
• Seattle

Here is his letter:

Hello everyone,

Alright, so it’s my most ambitious project yet, but I’m hoping to pull together a big rewild tour up the west coast for next spring. It’s going to involve 1-3 day camps in a bunch of cities up the west coast. These camps will cover the basic premises of living wild, bringing together ancestral skills, martial arts, myth, movement, discussions, magic, wild food potlucks,  campfires with music etc, and maybe do a walkabout in each place, walking somewhere wild that is special to the place. Also, I’m interested in getting the tour to network different autonomous groups (i.e. getting food provided by food not bombs, talking to regional environmental groups about it, etc).

To be able to pull this off I’m going to need a lot of help, I need to have a regional organizer in each location that would be dedicated to making it happen, we also need folks who would be willing to travel and teach, or just to teach/share at the nearest location. We also need a veggie oil vehicle(?).

Please let me know if y’all have any ideas or want to help…

Patrick

hodaki7@hotmail.com

Well, as it turns out, I don’t have the means nor the energy to continue this project. At least not in this form of a blog. My inspiration has waned for keeping this space active for the time at hand. I will still work on projects such as videos and writings and events and classes and such, just not as much writing as I have done in the past year and a half. Thanks to everyone who supported me through this endeavor. Unfortunately, I have no money and must return to the civilized world to make my living. I never made enough money through classes, tips, google ads, amazon sales, etc. to sustain myself in this project and so I plan to turn to more capitalist ventures in order to make a living so that I can rewild. I’d like to own land someday, which requires a “real job” in order to make the kind of money necessary for purchase and maintenance of such a place. I will take down the chapters in my book soon and put up a downloadable PDF for a small amount of money as I try to shop it around to publishers. I plan to work on a video series entitled, “Earth Skills Are Easy” that I will also have available for purchase on this site at some time in the future. Of course, all that depends on how much time I spend at my real job. This doesn’t mean that I will spend less time rewilding, but less time sharing my rewilding with all of you. Thanks again for all your support. I will return!

Keep on Rewilding,

Scout

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Finisia, a fellow rewilder who lives in a post-apocalyptic, horse drawn cart, planting back the native plants in the traditional way has found herself in trouble. While planting, a ranger approached her and well, she ended up in jail! What the fuck?

Click here to donate to Finisia’s legal fund.

From her website:

August 16, 2008

On July 29, 2008 during Finisia’s journey to Berry Camp, she camped along the Salmon River near Challis, Idaho, and was planting native plants along the river bank. A Forest Service officer stopped to question Finisia about her activities. She was uncooperative and was arrested for obstructing/resisting an officer.

As of August 16, Finisia is still incarcerated in the Lemhi County Jail in Salmon, Idaho.
She wrote a letter to the Lemhi County Court and mailed a copy to me, requesting that I post it here for all to read.

Orion,
I gave this to the court. Could you post this to explain my arrest?

(This is an exact copy of what I gave to the court)

I would like it to be known that the reasoning in my violations is a deliberate act of civil disobedience. This was to bring to light that I have been violating U.S. Government treaties of war by engaging in that indigenous life way that was disallowed to force the native onto reservations and to complete the genocide of that life way.

I find life in this civilized way unconscionable and immoral! I find myself without freedom of conscience in it. For twenty-five years I have been planting back the native food flowers of lomatium, cymopterus, bitterroot, yampa, lilies, and berries without permit on public lands. I have done so to complete my cycles and to give life to that which fed me. If I am always planting these flowers there is constantly more of these plants rather than less. This is my duty to God and to Earth. I have been doing this secretly, knowing that I am a violator of statute, code and treaty. I have come out of the closet, so to speak, in order to bring to the attention of all, the injustice of these laws that continue to enforce the genocide on this way of life. I do this only to follow my spiritual convictions, and to have any sense of conscience.

I further am of the opinion that there is criminality in civilization that is not unlawful. It is criminal what is done to the Big Lost River system in favor of farming industries, as is the damning of rivers and the results of salmon depletion, and destroying ozone in nuclear test. I’ve tried many times to assimilate into society but it would require a psychosis of denial to all of these realities. I find I would forfeit my soul and live a fabric of lies in order to enjoy myself in the destruction and extinctions and genocides required by civilization.

I would hope that the destructive results of the civilized world would result in some relinquishment of dominion and that those who destroy this way of life and continue to forbid it could find reason to begin to allow those of us who can to engage in a socio-environmental experiment to show once again how I and others can be effective in enlivening the natural world.

I have many friends who would like to participate in supporting this or being this thing I call human being. I believe all those who will not complete their circle and give life back to mother earth for all that she gives us, are not standing up to their obligation to creator, creation or even their own children. I am asking for your help to establish this way again. I am doing this as a way to blaze a trail to liberty in this way and to open the door to it so that those who would choose this can, without threats of incarceration that I now face for doing such things.

There is now only 2% of God’s aboriginal planting left on earth. I reject that I should be criminal to live a migratory, planting back, walks in beauty way. This hoop in the west is the last place on earth where it is even possible to live in that symbiotic way. All over the earth this aboriginal planting has been done away with. The earth has been made to be like a girdled tree and here in my home in the west is the last small ribbon of bark. Even so, there isn’t any slacking of exploitation of the last 2%. Here even now these plants and animals are being plowed and burned and ground to extinction and those who benefit from these thefts and murders are in denial in order to continue unabated. They are full of self-excuse and justification.

I am at a point in my life I would echo Patrick Henry, “Give my liberty or give me death.”… if I cannot be allowed this life way that my people and my Mother earth cry out for. All of nature is in travail crying out to us to be this kind of people and begin to revisit this old way that provided what Americans called a “Garden of Eden”… to do the work of restoration and re-creation. If I cannot have this, my life is worthless to me and a forfeiture. To be permanently incarcerated in jail or mental institution or grave is better than what I now live. I care for nothing else and for any life outside of this old way. I have strived to not be against anything but it is a fact that to be for a life giving way over a culture of death put me in a perspective where I am an outsider and all is against me and what I am for.

You tell yourselves maybe that you love nature but live outside of it, and the road kill under your tires does not know anything of love from you.

To have hope, I do not say these things in a condemning tone, but to have hope I need to see this liberty to be this kind of person. I am sick at heart to have sneaked around like a criminal for 25 years doing this.

Jesus told you that you make evil good and this good thing evil. I hope that I have illuminated a path where any can see this is now so. Further, I hope in seeing this thing with me, you can help me to change our legacy and give our children an abundant natural world and a chance to see themselves as a beautiful life giving thing in it. I know they all most all can only see themselves now as a plague on earth.

I Hope. Here is my unreasonable delusion: I hope.

Joel, Chapter 2 – The Bible
I will show you a people unique in their ferocity, like a flame of fire, where before them is a Garden of Eden. Behind them a vast, toxic. desert wasteland.

Revelations, 11:18
God should and will destroy all those who destroy the earth.

A tree is known of it’s fruit. A child of creator would even suffer pains of death to give life to creation. A child of the destroyer lives to enjoy and perform the destruction of it.

Finisia Medrano

Lemhi County Jail
Inmate Finisia Medrano
206 Courthouse Drive
Salmon. Idaho 83467

Now that I have a consistently inconsistent job (again), it means I can’t really keep a weekly blog… Because what I do for money doesn’t relate to rewilding at all (quite the opposite actually). Those weekly blogs have felt like a fucking chore always anyway and I haven’t focused on actual instructional blogs. So now that I work all crazy days and hours I will switch the format a bit here and instead of boring accounts of weekly adventures, I will create a giant list of goals for blogs that I will write when I have the time. I didn’t start writing here to talk about the philosophy of rewilding, I started writing here to teach physical skills you can do to rewild. I plan to switch back to this idea as I finish up saying what I have to say about the philosophy of rewilding (than try to find a publisher for that book). I also plan to start teaching more classes. I’ve decided against doing mostly free classes as in the many years I have done so, always the people who pay for classes give you more respect. I will still hold free rewild camps from time to time, but stay tuned for seeing some interesting classes offered here.

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This week I got my allergy test results back. To celebrate my low reaction to wheat, I went camping with a bunch of friends and ate a bunch of hot dogs and beer. We played around with knapping some beer bottle bottoms. I did a little tracking. Willem found a salt lick. Two helicopters buzzed us about 8 times after dark. Weird. Nothing like helicopters at night to stir my inner paranoia.

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Deep Green Resistance
A Weekend Workshop with Derrick Jensen

October 24-26, 2008
Lincoln City, OR

We live in the most destructive culture to ever exist. In Derrick’s talks around the country, he repeatedly asks his audiences, “Does anyone think this culture will voluntarily transform to a sustainable way of living?” No one ever says yes. If we really accept the seriousness of the situation, what would that mean for our strategy and tactics? This is the urgent question we will be exploring over the weekend.

Topics to include:
Organizing the Resistance
Bringing It Down: Bottlenecks and Levers
Security Culture
Liberal vs Radical: Some Conceptual Basics
Fighting Future Fascism
Preparing for the Crash
Q & A with Derrick

For more info, go to http://www.derrickjensen.org/dgr.html

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This has felt like the most difficult chapter for me to write. I’ve tried several times and deleted everything. You would assume that writing “Civilization Vs Rewilding” would come very easy, since civilization means the exact opposite of rewilding. Than I got to thinking. Most people don’t know what civilization means. They use the word “civilization” synonymously with “culture” and “society” and even, “humanity.”

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This week I attended the totally awesome Echoes in Time primitive/pioneer skills gathering just outside of Salem, OR at Willamette Mission State Park. Thanks Dale, Goode and Leland for putting on this gathering!

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I got into a fight with a friend who plays music. He thought I had judged him as a musician, thinking that I would eventually “put music under the long list of ‘everything vs. rewilding.’” In a sense, I could see how he (and others) think that by putting something up against rewilding, I mean that rewilding does not include it. I see how people could easily make the assumption that I think everything but rewilding, sucks. By now you too, might have had the thought, “this ‘vs.’ shit has really started to bug me.” Let me explain…

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You make one hippie joke… And the next thing you know a permaculturalist mob pounds on your door ready to burn you at the stake! Sure, I may have articulated my thesis poorly and I didn’t use delicate enough language… But in the end, I won the war. So there!

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Native peoples played a major role in the maintenance and enhancement of biological diversity by introducing disturbances that created and maintained mosaics of different vegetation types. These disturbances, caused mainly by burning, were carried out specifically to maintain populations of plants that were gathered for food, cordage, basketry, and other uses and to enhance their quality. Thus traditional gathering, practiced holistically as both gathering and management, has the potential to promote biodiversity and restore communities to their formerly more heterogeneous conditions.

In her book Tending the Wild, M. Kat Anderson has painted a very different picture of indigenous peoples than most civilized people could even begin to fathom. She begins by taking us through the history of California and its Native peoples. Using accounts of explorers, missionaries, pioneers and anthropologists she shows how those of our culture came to California with no understanding or lens with which to understand native land management. Rather, like everywhere else, civilization saw resources to extract, came and conquered California and her people. With California’s wildlife & Native cultures now decimated, newer research has shown that Native land management actually contributed to enhancing the biological diversity and abundance of life. Anderson argues that if we wish to restore our mutual relationship with nature, we must learn these ancient management techniques and implement them immediately. Although she uses only California Natives to back her thesis, we can witness these same principles among indigenous cultures the world over. This book works not only as a history of indigenous horticulture in California, but mostly as a beginners manual for those who seek to understand more about sustainable, indigenous land management. This book rocked my world. Don’t miss out, buy it now!

Click the pic to buy the book!

*this is an out-dated version of this concept. I’ve revised it off the web and will repost it later.*

In the same vain as Primitive Skills Vs. Rewilding, permaculture does not encompass a world view change away from civilization. In fact, I see permaculture more often than not used as an example of how to save civilization from collapse. As much as it may seem like this essay means to attack permaculture, I actually think permaculture works great as a starting point for learning indigenous horticultural practices and preparing yourself for the collapse of civilization by disconnecting yourself from the industrial food economy. I read and practice permacultural principles and base my garden plans from them! I have a copy of Toby Hemenway’s Gaia’s Garden on my shelf. [/disclaimer]

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A few (always white) people have attacked me as a cultural appropriator. If I learned a Lakota song, recorded it and sold it to others, that works as cultural appropriation. If I make a fire using a bow-drill, that doesn’t count as appropriation because it represents a piece of technology widely distributed around the world and carries no dogmatic cultural practice with it. I don’t benefit financially from the sale of particular indigenous traditional cultural practices. You won’t see me sell a line of Traditional Chanupa Pipes.

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We know that humans who lived here for millions of years did so in a sustainable fashion. We know that civilization has caused the one of the largest mass-extinctions in only a few thousand. We know that the thousands of cultures that did not practice agriculture and create civilizations lived in this other sustainable way. We know that a lot of those cultures had civilized contamination by the time our cultures anthropologists wrote about them. Fortunately, enough writing on less-touched cultures exists so we can estimate how much contamination a certain culture experienced before we wrote about it, by understanding the baseline of indigenous cultures. For example when someone argues that rape/spousal abuse existed in indigenous cultures, we can often link that behavior only to post-contact.

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Dear Diary,

Well, looks like the History Channel dropped my interview for their apocalypse show… I knew I shouldn’t have binged on all those frosted Circus Animal, animal crackers! Oh well. I keep getting bites from TV people, but no catches yet. I just don’t understand. When will I get my big break? Geez. I feel like such a whiny douchebag. Well, at least some nice folks put a few bucks in my tip jar. Thanks to Carrie and John.

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My triumphant return to filmmaking.

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Hey friends, If you appreciate the work I do here, please support me by clicking the tip jar icon on the right and tipping me.

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My friend William made this after I told him about the ants that have started attacking civilization and I had to pass it on:

Philosophically I loathe pacifism, because instinctively, I would never even consider it. Yet, reflexively I enact pacifism when attacked, threatened or intimidated. After practicing something long enough, you can re-train your reflexes. I have pacifist values, not because I want to or chose to, but because of my training from early childhood in civilization and specifically, in school. We learn to never fight back or we will receive worse than what we gave. This training needs to stop, now. We need to rewild our relationship to violence.

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Who can live with a light heart while participating in a global slaughter that makes the Nazi holocaust look like a limbering-up exercise?
- Daniel Quinn in Providence

The more time I spend at my job, the easier it gets to ignore my pain. I can shut it off and let my body function. I can remove all external thought and simply become part of the machine, pushing a button over and over and over again, lulling my heart back to sleep with rhythmic clockwork.

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